Kung Fu Humans Chapter Six
KUNG FU HUMANS CHAPTER SIX "Guys!" Po exclaimed, running into the palace. Trinity, Nicole and I immediately woke up at the sound of Po's voice. We had gone to bed last night and slept on the mats. It was really hard to get to sleep when Po was right there. But I fell asleep eventually. Po had woken us up with his heavy footsteps running down the hall. I opened my eyes. The sun was high in the sky. The other masters must have awoken earlier, and Shifu had let us sleep in. I was surprised that I never heard the gong sound. I sighed and got out of bed. Or, in other words, off my mat. "Girls, get dressed and meet me in the dining hall!" Po called into the room. He then ran off, his footsteps like drums pounding against my ears. I yawned. "Why us?" Trinity asked. We looked through our piles of clothes and found these to wear- matching pairs of blue-green jeans, black sandals, sleeveless Chinese shirts (mine was blue-green, Nicole's was dark brown, and Trinity's was hazel) and we all put our hair up in ponytails. I look better with my hair down, but hey, why not try something new? Then we ran into the dining hall. "I wonder what Po was screaming about," Nicole said as we left his room. "Probably something about those rhinos," Trinity said. "I bet they're coming to attack or something." Well, they weren't coming to attack, but something bad had happened. ---- We saw all of the masters gathered around the table, Po standing up in front of them. Po threw a newspaper with Chinese writing on the table. "They arrested Heng!" We looked up at him, confused. "Who the heck is Heng?" Nicole asked as we sat down in the three empty seats. "You never heard about Empress Ka Lun's poisoning?" Monkey asked us. We shook our heads. "Never," Trinity said to him. "It appears that news doesn't travel fast," Monkey said. We shrugged. "Come on, tell us!" Nicole said. "Who's Heng?" "Well, let's read the article, maybe it'll explain who Heng is," Po said. He picked up the paper and started reading: "Last week, two hundred and fifty nine people working in the royal palace were interrogated by a top-class detective, Haki Malian. Malian questioned every single one of the people, asking very tough questions that only a true criminal could lie through. She had finally come to the decision that the culprit was either Heng Shicana, Chicano Marut, or Hannon Jaqui, all workers at the royal palace. Every single one of them were arrested by soldiers and put into Chor Gom prison, unable to escape until Malian looks at all the evidence and finds out who the real culprit was. "Nine days ago, when Empress Ka Lun was holding her annual worker feast, a feast for all of the workers of the palace, she scoffed down a piece of turkey, and the unthinkable happened. Her eyes rolled back in her head and she hit the floor like a doll. Drool poured down the side of her mouth. Then the lights went out. When they went back on, three workers were missing- Shicana, Marut, and Jaqui. There is only one explanation for this- Empress Ka Lun was poisoned. "Shicana is the person who is most likely the culprit. He gave Empress Ka Lun a separate piece of chicken, not from the bird that the servants cooked. She ate it, and then fell to the floor. 'Heng Shicana is most likely the culprit,' Malian told the press. During Shicana's interrogation, he said that he just saw the chicken laying there on the plate that Ka Lun ate from most of the time, and he brought it to her, a while after the feast started. 'But when I asked him why he wasn't there when the lights went on, he went silent,' Malian continued. "But Marut could be the culprit also. He was one of Ka Lun's most trusted warriors. She always said how his looks attracted her, and she wanted to ask him if he would consider marrying her after Emperor Ma Ku Si died last winter of a rare disease. But a year ago, Emperor Ma Ku Si executed Marut's girlfriend after she committed murder. 'He told me that he has always wanted revenge on Ma Ku Si's family,' Malian said. 'And what easier way than to poison her? So I put him down on my list of possible culprits.' Marut was also recently seen fighting the warriors of the Jade Palace and three human girls at Ping's Noodle Shop recently. "And finally, Jaqui. Jaqui is a silent, mysterious type of servant.. For years, she has been fighting cannibalism, and it made sense for her to poison Ka Lun for that. In a speech last autumn, Ka Lun said, 'I only eat the flesh of those who have sinned greatly in their lives. All others are let go. It isn't a wonder that those who pass by fear me.' Jaqui is known for being thrown into the dungeons for yelling at the empress for Ka Lun's cannibalism. Jaqui is also Marut's current girlfriend. If Jaqui didn't poison Ka Lun, she could have reasoned with Marut and asked him to do it. Another thing Jaqui is known for is being an outcast. With her white hair, purple eyes, and light skin, she is rumored to be a vampire. 'Oh, sure!' Jaqui was heard screaming at a group of people laughing at her when she was a teenager. 'I have white hair, sharp teeth, and light skin, so I MUST be a vampire! I don't want a boyfriend, so I MUST be a loser! I don't talk a lot, so I MUST be anti-social! Thanks for clearing that up for me!' One of the people in that group was Ka Lun. "And those are your three possible suspects. All others were let go. Malian is still looking over the information, trying to solve this case. Who was the real culprit? I have a feeling that we'll find out soon!" Po finally finished reading and looked up at us. My eyes had widened. The empress was poisoned? It sounded like a big case. "So why are you guys worried about Heng in particular?" Nicole asked. "The messenger bird, Zeng," Mantis said. "That's his cousin." "Oh," I said. "Well, what do we do now?" "We try and prove that Heng was innocent," Tigress said. "That's what we do." "But guys, for all we know, he could have poisoned the Empress!" Po exclaimed. "Also, we have no evidence, how do we prove him innocent?" "We'll try, Po," Nicole said. "We'll try." She winked at me. "Make out scene!" I yelled, realizing that Nicole was reenacting a line from Chili with Mold season one, episode two. It was the part after Ariel tells Berundun that they would have two kids- both girls. Po turned red. "What are you guys talking about!?" he asked worriedly. "I'm not- no- what!?" "Sorry," Trinity apologized for them. "Guys, this isn't the time to be quoting Chili with Mold. Especially that scene from season one episode two." She turned to Po. "It's a popular, um, book series that we read." I nodded, knowing that TV was unheard of in ancient China. "Can we just finish role playing?" I asked. Trinity punched me in the shoulder. "NO!" she yelled. "Guys, come on," Viper said. "We need to help him out. Let's get Zeng to deliver a message for us to the prison." It seemed like a good idea. Until Zeng came back a half-hour later with a message from the guards of Chor Gom prison. On it was one word, written in permanent ink. It read, "NO". "Well that was a horrible plan," Nicole said. We all glared at her. "Well it was!" "I don't believe this!" Zeng wailed. "My own cousin, the possible culprit of a poisoning! I don't believe it! I can't believe it! I won't believe it! I shan't believe it!" He then just broke down in tears. "Zeng, I think you could use some alone time," I said to him, the only comforting words I could find. "Go to your room and try and calm down. Alone time works for everyone." Zeng nodded through heavy tears and flew off, leaving behind a trail of bird tears. "Okay, now that he's out of the way," Trinity said. "How do we prove Heng innocent?" "There is only one solution to the problem," a voice behind us said. We turned. It was Master Shifu. "Master!" I exclaimed. "We need to go to the palace ourselves," Master Shifu said… ---- Everyone in the palace was hugging each other, happy to be back. None of them had committed the crime, and they were joyous that they had been set free. Haki Malian was a hard person to lie through. Suddenly, there was a loud knock on the door, interrupting everything. One servant, Ka Lun's former tailor, a lemur named Chuan, answered the door. She dropped the plate she was holding onto the ground when she saw the visitors. She bent down to pick them up, extremely embarrassed. "Oh! Forgive me, masters of the Jade Palace!" she exclaimed, her face turning pink. "It's fine, miss, really," Master Shifu said. I saw him lean down and help to pick the pieces of the broken plate. He placed them onto a nearby table. "Who is in charge here, now that Ka Lun has died?" "I am sorry, sir, but nobody is in charge," Chuan said, bowing. "Well, Haki Malian has been giving orders around here, but she isn't officially in charge." "May we speak with her?" Master Shifu asked. "Well, I don't know if it's alright, but-" "You're blushing, miss," Shifu said. Chuan got pinker and put her hand on her cheek. "Oh my… does it show that much? Well… alright." We entered the great palace. It looked spectacular from the outside, but better on the inside. Gold artifacts littered the shelves, and the walls were a crystal blue. The floors were decorated in black and white tiles. It went like that throughout the entire palace. "She's in Ka Lun's room," Chuan said. "Go up these stairs, go up to level three, third door on the right in the third hall from the left." "Thank you, miss," Shifu said. We all walked into the palace, and I couldn't help but marvel at the sight of it. The rest of us did, too. We followed Chuan's directions until we came to a room with a gold door. The handle was solid gold as well. I grabbed the handle and turned it, pushing open the door. The room was just fabulous. The walls were a dark shade of gold, making the room brighter. The carpeting was dark red, and so were the sheets of the large king bed. On one side of the room was a door leading to a large bathroom (I only saw black tiles and red walls), and there were dressers and gold decorations everywhere. There were only three windows. The one in the middle was right next to a dresser, and right across the room from us. Standing there was a woman. A human woman. We could only see half of her face, but she had dull, purple eyes, silvery hair that went down to her waist, and she was wearing an old time Sherlock Holmes hat and a matching coat that went down to the floor. On her feet were black buckled shoes, and she was smoking a cigarette while doing her makeup. She looked like a college student. Just by her looks I could tell that she was a young, smoking, old time detective who wants to do her job well and look good doing it. "Haki Malian?" I asked. The woman turned around and faced us. Her stare sent a chill up my spine. "Yes?" she asked, in a deep voice. "Miss Malian, we were just wondering if we could ask you a few questions," Shifu stepped in front of me. Haki stared at us. "Alright, great Master Shifu," she said. For some reason, she turned her hands into fists at the mention of his name. Did she hate him, for some unknown reason? Well, we had to ask her questions. "Miss Malian, take a seat on that chair," Master Shifu ordered her. She looked at the two chairs directly under the window. She shook her head. "I'm afraid that I won't sit under your will, Shifu," Haki said, still looking at the chair. "But I will sit under mine." She sat on the chair and crossed her legs. "Now, you had a few questions for me?"